Marisa's Summer Camp
by Iced Fairy
Summary: Lured by the promise of massive profits, Marisa accepts three young witches for a "summer camp." As one might expect, the prospective campers are less then thrilled. Though they may find the Forest of Magic is not your standard camp, and Marisa is not the standard camp adviser.
1. Chapter 1

"Helena! Get up. If you don't wake soon you'll be late."

Helena groaned and tried to pretend she hadn't heard those words. Normally she was fine with waking up in the morning but…

"Helena." Her grandmother's voice was stern. "You're going today no matter what. The only question is if you'll have packed what you want to bring instead of just what you need."

"I packed yesterday." Giving up on the pretense of sleep, Helena rolled out of her bed and faced her mother and grandmother. "And I still don't know why I need to do this mother. What's the point of this summer camp nonsense? You're both better than that witch, and Gensoukyo's just some backwater realm. Not like our Nova Thiva. Why not send me to the countryside instead?"

"Hmph. You're going precisely because it is a backwater." Her grandma snorted. "The only danger you face in the countryside is wagging tongues and jilted lovers blaming you for selling potions. And the wilds would eat you up without a second thought." Grandma shook her head. "No no. This Gensoukyo seems a much better place for you to learn the basics of being a witch."

Her mother nodded and Helena's hopes of escaping the trip fell back into Hades. "And this Marisa girl seems like a fine tutor. She was apparently handling the local god spawn at quite the young age, not that she's much older than you now. Worthless as an advanced teacher, of course, but a perfect short term guardian."

Helena sighed deeply and headed to her closet. "Fine. Let me get dressed."

After they finally left her in peace she changed into one of the few outfits that wasn't already packed and grabbed some of her charms and talismans that she didn't want to just stuff away. She was thankful at least that her witch outfits were acceptable clothing for this trip. Nova Thiva fashion tended to be variants on the peplos, but Helena preferred more modern wear.

Sighing again she stared down at the travel bag as if glaring at it could make it disappear. Well admittedly, Helena could make it disappear, but her mother could just magic it back, so it would be no use.

Eventually she gave in to the inevitable and grabbed the bag. Hopefully she'd at least get out of the house without too much of a fuss.

Her hopes ended up being in vain. The whole family turned up to see her off, complete with a sacrifice to Hestia and Hermes, in addition to Hecate. And every one of them had some piece of advice to give her, most of which she already knew, and all of which she forgot. As the well-wishing dragged on so long she eventually started looking forward to leaving. A little.

The journey was staggeringly anticlimactic. Her grandmother cast a simple spell, and suddenly they were in a forest. Looking around Helena didn't see too much different from the forests of home, other than the types of trees and the number of mushrooms. A simple cottage sat nearby.

"Ah! It's Helena!"

She turned to see the familiar faces of Lyudmila and Kseniya Doroshenko. As two of the few magicians her age Helena ran into them often at events. Lyudmila looked just as annoyed to be here as she was, which made sense. The Slavic witch was pretty reasonable, even if she was a year younger then Helena. Kseniya on the other hand was peering around like this was some grand adventure. She hoped she didn't get pulled into babysitting duty on the young girl. "Hello," she said. Lyudmila nodded grimly in reply.

The two girl's parents bowed to her grandmother. "Honored matron Aoede. It is a pleasure."

"The pleasure is mine," her grandma replied. "I'm glad to see my little Helena will be in good company."

"Oh hey, you're all here."

Helena looked up to see Marisa circling in for a landing on, of all things, an actual broom. While Helena wore witch's robes often, actually riding a broom was utterly unthinkable. It was just so… old fashioned.

The black white witch ignored the stares her odd flying garnered and simply landed. "Welcome to Gensoukyo. Traditionally we're supposed to get in a fight right about now, but since y'all are paying me, and the kids don't know danmaku we'll skip that." Marisa smiled. "Instead let me show you the place you kids will be staying."

Helena blinked as the older witch began to walk towards the cottage. "We're staying there?"

"Yep!" Marisa glibly ignored Helena's disbelieving tone. "I hear it's traditional to use tents and all, but that's not exactly the best idea with all the youkai wandering about. So I cleaned out this little place and replaced the wards for you kids." Marisa opened the door and waved everyone in. "Come on, I'll give you all the tour, such as it is."

Helena looked up at her Grandma, but the woman's expression indicated she'd find no solace there. Sighing, she forced herself past Marisa and looked around the living room. The floor was covered with strange reed mats, a couple of chairs and tables were the extent of the furniture, and there wasn't even a hearth. The back door obviously led to a food storehouse of some sort, while the other led to a hallway.

"Kinda primitive," Lyudmila muttered as the other girl walked in next to her.

"It is supposed to be a camp dear," Lyudmila's mom said.

Helena and Lyudmila looked at each other again and sighed. Kseniya on the other hand ran to the hallway. "Ah! It has three beds! Wow!"

"Well that's something," Lyudmila said.

Helena gave her friend a disbelieving look. "You don't have your own bed?"

"Not everyone's magical realm comes with a city filled with architects," Lyudmila muttered.

"It seems a very solid building," Mr Doroshenko said. "But I didn't sense any wards. How good is the protection?"

Marisa laughed. "Ah well, I stole most of the wards from Reimu so they only activate on hostile intent. Don't wanna fry the friendly spirits after all. You probably don't notice them because they're spiritual wards."

Grandma nodded. "A very good protection. Eastern religion to keep Eastern chimera in check."

"I've also got something of a reputation myself," Marisa said proudly. "So if I say a place is off limits people tend to pretend to listen." Helena slumped as the black white witch's smug gaze fell upon her. "Still, you kids will have to beat off the less deadly troublemakers on your own. That's part of the fun though, right?"

"How can that be considered fun?" Helena muttered.

"Seriously, banishing goblins is booooring," Lyudmila whined.

Marisa chuckled. "Good thing you won't have to deal with those then. You get to banish tanuki, karakasa and fairies instead. But we'll go over that later, after you've settled in a bit."

The woman paused to brush off some lint before heading towards the kitchen stores. "Anyway the food's here. We'll restock weekly but there should be enough for three girls, even if you all are still growing. I'll be helping you with meals for a while until you get the hang of the ingredients. And I made a deal with Sakuya so you can have some homey food every week as well." Helena perked up a little at that. She was afraid she'd be kept away from yogurt and lamb meat all summer in this backwater.

Marisa paused then turned to face all of them. "Oh yeah, don't think it'll be an issue, but I probably should ask. You okay with eating human, or should I tell Sakuya to just save that for the youkai?"

Helena grimaced. Eating human flesh was something that appeared in a few of the darker rituals, but her family didn't keep many of those spells. Lyudmila on the other hand looked insulted. "Do we look like hagkin?" Lyudmila asked harshly.

Lyudmila's mother put a hand on her shoulder. "Now now dear, they can't know what that means in our realm."

"Nah it's cool," Marisa replied with a smile. "I swear, the gals around here all seem to think I'm weird for ignoring the stuff, but if you ask me they're the weird ones. Anyway I'll tell Sakuya to serve us real food. You don't need to worry about her breaking that promise. She's still human, sorta."

As the adults started asking Marisa about "activities" and "schedules" Helena walked over to the hallway. The bedroom looked decently sized at least, and there was an interior bath and a toilet. It was at least a step up from a tent in the woods. Though she still thought it was barbaric to not have a hearth.

Lyudmila moved to her side. "Kseniya, stop making a fool of yourself."

Kseniya pouted before flopping down on one of the beds. "Hmph. Fine, I won't tell you which beds are the good beds!"

"Oh come on, there isn't going to be a difference in beds," Lyudmila said with a roll of her eyes.

"I'm surprised she was able to find three beds on short notice," Helena muttered as she looked over the furniture. There was a little placard on the head which read 'Eientei Recovery Ward.' Strange. Marisa must have bought spares off of them.

"Well are you settling down Helena dear?"

She looked up to see Grandma standing in the hallway. "If I say no can I spend the summer in Crete instead?"

"No," Grandma said with a smile. "Now, we must be off. Try not to give Marisa here too much trouble."

"Hey, don't spoil my fun before the camp's even started," called Marisa from the main room. Helena ground her teeth at how childish her new 'teacher' was acting.

Mr and Ms Doroshenko stepped in and hugged Lyudmila and Kiseniya. "Now Kseniya, you have fun. And Lyudmila you keep an eye on your little sister," Ms Doroshenko said.

"Yes mother," the two replied with varying levels of enthusiasm.

They all headed off to the front of the little cabin, where the two families each set up their teleport rituals. The finality of it was all starting to sink into Helena's mind as Grandma finished up the sleek lines of the ritual circle. Even Kseniya's good cheer was fading. "Remember to write every week," Grandma said.

And then they were gone.

Helena looked around the strange forest that was going to be her new home for the next three months. The trees were a mix of reasonable maples and strange pines. There were mushrooms and lichen everywhere. And the whole area simmered with a strange magical power.

"This is going to suck," she sighed.

"So gloomy. I thought Greece was supposed to be sunny and stuff." Helena looked back as her 'guardian,' Marisa, spoke. "You kids need to learn how to brighten up a bit. Which, in fact, will be our first activity!"

"Huh," Kseniya turned to join the conversation, her expression shifting to confusion. "You're going to teach us a light spell? But we know those."

Marisa laughed and pulled out a card. "Well, it is technically a light spell, but I'm sure you haven't seen this one before. Watch and learn kids. 'Orreries Sun!'"

The three young girls all hopped back as a mystic rune formed around Marisa's feet, then four colored orbs spun out around her. The witch woman pointed towards the sky, and the orbiting spheres began a colorful barrage of lasers and bullets. Helena gaped at the sight. She knew instinctively that a powerful witch could do this, but she'd never seen anyone actually perform the feat.

After a bit Marisa closed her hand and the spell faded away. "One of my first cards, though I've improved it a lot. That'll be the first thing we learn."

"Wait, you're teaching us an attack spell first thing?" Lyudmila asked incredulously. Helena nodded in agreement. It seemed too dangerous. Sure Marisa made a big deal about being childish and irresponsible, but there was no way an adult could be that out of it!

"I'm teaching you danmaku," Marisa said simply. The woman adjusted her hat and her face became serious. "The first rule is you don't go anywhere in Gensoukyo without at least one spellcard you can use. If anyone gives you trouble you demand a spellcard duel. Winners can't eat or seal the losers. That's the way we settle things here. Heck most people will just start off slinging spellcards without the whole dueling nonsense. So before you can wander about, you need a card to your name."

Helena frowned. "But what happens if someone doesn't use spellcards? I mean, there are a lot of chimeras too stupid to use magic."

"We kill them," Marisa replied flatly. All three of the girls flinched at the declaration. "If something threatens you and isn't playing by the rules, slap it with the deadliest curses you can think of and run. I'll handle it from there." The three girls shuddered at Marisa's cold reply. Helena's worries about being bored were starting to be replaced with more concrete fears…

Marisa shook her head, then laughed. "Ah don't worry about it. Most of the youkai who are too dumb to play along get killed off real fast. Almost none of them are real threats. You should worry more about getting laughed at by people for not having spell cards. Even the fairies can manage that much."

"Um," Kseniya raised her hand. "So, how do we make the cards? I don't have any paper or pencils."

"The cards are magically created as part of the spell ritual that makes the attack non-lethal, Kseniya," Lyudmila said. "But how are we going to use your spell? Aren't spell cards supposed to be representations of people's skill? Shouldn't we use our best spells?"

"Good catch there kid," Marisa replied. "Nice to see one of you studied how we do things around here. Anyway that's the beauty of things. I'm not going to be teaching you the spell."

Helena slumped and glared at their teacher. "So how are we supposed to turn it into a spellcard?"

"The same way I learned how to do it. I'll show you what you need to do and the basic framework for the spell. You kids will finish the spell, customizing it to fit your own particular types of magic." Marisa held out her hand and a runic circle appeared over her hand. "So gather round. As you can tell the spell is based around the movement of the planets and stars…"

Helena stepped forward as Marisa began her lecture. "The important part of the spell is forming the orbs and getting them to orbit right. Can't build a solar system without planets. That's the innermost circle. After that you just start them orbiting, that's the surrounding circles. Slap on some limits so the orbs don't blow up and you should be good. The stars will just spin out naturally."

Helena looked at the spell, then over to her fellow victims. Lyudmila and Kseniya looked back at her with blank expressions. This time it was Kseniya who broke the silence. "But that doesn't make sense at all."

"It makes perfect sense," Marisa pouted. "Look just grab the runes and fix it up how you all want. Trust me it'll work."

Sighing, Helena mentally traced the rune and looked over it. At least the base spell itself made sense. The orbiting was well defined and she could vaguely understand the formation spells, but the important details that made it a useful spell were covered by nonsense runes and ridiculous ideas. She took a step back and constructed her own version, stripping out the useless bits. Then she peered at the holes left over. It was missing a proper definition for the planets, and some way of making the whole apparatus actually shoot something.

Well the first part was at least easy. She placed in the planets, Hermes, Aphrodite, Ares and Zeus. The solid weight of the names made the spell seem more real in her mind. Now from that how would she manage the attacks?

Helena spent several minutes puzzling over stars and orbits and other nonsense before it hit her. The purpose of the spell wasn't specifically to shoot stars and lasers. It was an attack spell, which meant it just had to shoot bullets. She just had to get it to fire an attack of some sort.

Carefully she wrote in runes connecting the planets to each of their elemental virtues. She frowned as she got to Zeus, then scribbled in herself as the element of earth, before granting the giant planet quintessence as its element. She looked over the figures again frowning, before scratching out the work and rewriting it as lightning. Helena knew that lightning wasn't a real element in any sense, but she wasn't going to give Zeus the honored element of quintessence. The planet was fine, but the god was generally insufferable.

"That looks like something Patchy would do." Helena started and nearly lost the spell as Marisa spoke up behind her. The older witch ignored her angry glare and peered over the runes. "You'll wanna fix up your bullets though. Right now you're just calling on elemental stuff. You want to make it bullety."

"Bullety isn't a word," Helena muttered, but she looked over the spell anyway. Maybe if she asked the spell to act as it should it would acquiesce. It was worth a shot, right?

As she scribbled in her final request the spell seemed to snap together all at once. The rune glowed brightly, then seemed to meld itself into a small rectangle. She reached out her hand, and plucked the card from the air. The back was an intricate crossroad of vines, with three torches and a key hidden within the tangle. She found liked the design, though it could probably use a touchup.

As she finished studying the newly minted spellcard, Kseniya gasped then laughed as her own rune solidified. "Ah! I did it!"

"Nice job," Marisa said with a smile. The older magician walked over to where Lyudmila was still scribbling. "Huh? You don't need to fix the orbits there you know…"

"Yes I do. They're sloppy," Lyudmila replied before turning to the rune again. "Besides I'm almost done." Sure enough within a few moments Lyudmila's rune glowed and solidified into a card.

Marisa smiled and lazily sat down on her broom like it was a fence. "Good work all of you. You've each got a card to your name, which means tomorrow we can start running around and doing the fun stuff." Marisa's smile twisted into a smirk. "But first we gotta test them. Let's see what you got!" Marisa pointed across the clearing. "Your target is that stump."

Helena looked at Marisa, then down at the card in her hands. "What, we're just supposed to shoot it?"

"Yep!" Marisa replied.

"Alright!" Kseniya said. "Orreries Sun!"

Four twinkling orbs exploded around the little girl, then to Helena's surprise a shadowy cloud swirled out around Kseniya. The cloud expanded into a firmament then a swarm of stars and what looked like birds appeared spinning within the shadows before flying out towards the stump randomly. It was hardly the amazing barrage Marisa had performed. But it was still impressive for a ten year old.

Helena turned back to her own card, then mentally shrugged and pointed at the stump. "Orreries Sun." The card seemed to click in her mind, and the magical circle she'd carefully created flashed to life again. From it her own four orbs arose, but hers were far more solid than the ethereal spheres Kseniya had created. More interestingly each seemed cased in the proper element of the planet she'd called upon. They felt powerful, and somehow eager.

With a flick of her finger she directed the spell towards the stump Marisa had indicated. The orbs began to spin quickly, then fire. The bolts were actually similar to Marisa's bullets, but each was wrapped in an element. Water, wind and fire splashed across the landscape, while electricity crackled with each hit.

Helena allowed her barrage to slow down a bit as Lyudmila took a few steps to the side and held up her own card. "Orreries Sun." Lyudmila's circle seemed to form around her waist, and as the orbs formed the circles didn't all disappear, leaving silver lines of light in the air. The orbs were odd as well, each a colored orb with runes engraved in it. They began to spin along the lines, elliptical journeys that closely matched the actual planet's orbits. As Lyudmila pointed they began to fire as well, silver blasts of energy that from erratic positions.

At this point the stump was starting to look fairly ragged. Danmaku was designed to be nonlethal, but it wasn't very discriminating towards inanimate objects. Lyudmila's bolts didn't do much damage, but her flame bursts and Kseniya's stars seemed to be more solid.

"Okay, that's enough." Marisa said. Helena stopped her spell, letting the orbs fade back into the aether. "Now for your final test. You're going to get to use your powers against a real dangerous youkai!"

A blast of wing rushed across the clearing as Marisa spoke, causing Helena to gasp and shield her eyes. As the windstorm died down she opened her eyes to see a woman wearing a checkered skirt with twintails punching stuff into what looked like a cell phone from the outside world. A closer look however showed the woman had pointed ears and an aura that no human possessed. "Hah! This time I'm first to the scoop!" The woman looked down at all of them. "Hatate Himekaido, of Kakashi Spirit News! Do you all have time for an interview?"

Helena looked back and forth between the woman and Marisa. Was the creature dangerous? Was Marisa making a joke? And interview? Why would this land have reporters, much less someone who wanted to interview them?

"She's a crow tengu. They're insufferable rumor mongers," Marisa said cheerily. "If you let one chat with you without shooting them in the face once or twice the whole mountain will be bugging you twenty four hours a day. Best to discourage them."

Hatate looked offended. "That's slander you know. Not everyone's a pushy tabloid reporter." The older girl held her cellphone out like a weapon. "But if you kids want to give me some action shots before the interview..."

That was what decided it for Helena. She looked at Lyudmilla and got a nod in return. The two raised their cards followed shortly by Kseniya.

"Orreries Sun!"

* * *

Helena flopped back on the bed. Today had been... different than what she'd expected. Then again she really wasn't sure exactly what to expect. More setting up tents and stupid rules rather than an attack spell and a firefight.

"Too bad we lost," she muttered.

Lyudmilla looked over from where she was stitching up her clothes. "Well it was our first battle. And I swear that 'tengu' or whatever was cheating."

"Yeah but even so..." Helena shook her head. "To get all that power and then be immediately shown up. It's a bit disappointing."

The trio's attacks had forced Hatate to retreat briefly, but somehow the tengu's camera dispelled their shots. Even with all three of them working together the tengu managed to dash around and dizzy them with her flash. After a few minutes they were spending more time doging each other's misfires then trying to hit Hatate. The ordeal finally ended when Marisa blasted the tengu with a huge laser. After that massive show of magical power the older witch had unexpectedly invited Hatate in for dinner.

The meal itself had been smoked fish with rice, along with a number of pickled vegetables. It was a little light on meat compared to the dishes back home, but the sticky rice had been more filling then she was used to. Helena and her fellow campers had been a little suspicious of the tengu girl, but Marisa and Hatate had chatted like nothing had happened.

Lyudmila's shrug broke Helena out of her reminiscing. "We learned a new spell at least. And an attack spell at that." Lyudmilla patted her spell card. "Mom and Dad won't even let me near the advanced attack grimoires! I have no idea why they let us come here if Marisa was going to teach this kind of magic."

"Well, it isn't a deadly spell. We would have to alter it a lot to make it the equal of a crossbow barrage, much less a true killing magic," Helena said as she sat up. She picked up the card giving it an appreciative examination. "Still, it's combat power. A very useful power."

"Power?" Lyudmilla frowned at her. "Why would you want specifically combat power?

Helena looked over at Lyudmilla. "You've studied the famous witches of my homeland right?" Lyudmilla nodded at her question. "Well, Kirke's the only one alive. The rest ran into someone they couldn't turn into a pig, or charm or curse, and got stabbed." Helena leaned back and reached towards the ceiling. "Having the ability to blast people with lightning seems totally cool compared to that."

Lyudmilla shook her head then shrugged. "I guess. I just liked designing it. It was fun getting the magic to all line up."

"I liked making the stars and birds," Kseniya said as she conjured up another small bird out of quintessence and set it circling in the room. Helena smirked as Lyudmilla sighed.

"Just don't summon them up when we're sleeping," Lyudmilla told her sister before returning her attention to mending.

Kseniya pouted but dismissed the bird. "Fiiiiine." The little girl hopped off the bed then headed to the main room, probably to practice her conjuring more.

Helena stretched, then picked up her training grimoire and fished a pen out of her pack. It was time to write this spellcard down properly.

* * *

_The canon train derails even more._

_So yeah I hinted this was going to be a thing, and I've decided to occasionally throw words at it. It'll be a bunch of connected scenes, more a three fairies manga rather then a giant plot thing, and it'll be fairly sporadically updated, but I have three or four ideas that should solidify into additions at some point._

_One of the interesting things I've noticed is that there aren't a lot of Touhou fics on outsiders who know the rules, but not the people. Most OC are either non mages or crossover characters bringing a ton of setting baggage with them. It's very rare to see things from the view of villagers working with the cast or magically inclined people from other cultural hideaways. With Helena, Lyudmilla and Kseniya I wanted to work into that second space. A group of people who accept the rules of magic, but are from a different culture. I think that viewpoint kinda find some ideas that haven't gotten their time under the Yatagarasu's blessing._


	2. Chapter 2

Helena looked over the shrine with a certain amount of pity. She'd seen a shrine heading towards the end of its life before and this one fit the bill. There weren't enough priests to keep it up, so it was run down. Since it was run down it couldn't get any money. And since it didn't have any money they couldn't hire a priest. Without an infusion of people from another temple, the cycle continued until the last caretaker gave up or died. The only thing this shrine had going for it was that the grounds were much larger than the building itself. That probably allowed it to run with less people.

"What god owns the temple?" she asked Marisa.

"Eh? It's the Hakurei shrine," Marisa replied. "It's for the barrier and the lands of the border."

Helena frowned. "Yeah but who's the god?" She shook the coins that Marisa had handed each of them before they'd started the trip. "I want to know who I'm giving my money to. Also I shouldn't give money to an enemy of Hecate." Not that it was likely they worshiped the titans in Japan but...

"I'm curious too," Kseniya said.

Marisa looked back at the three like they were asking something incomprehensible. "It's for the barrier and the lands of the boundary." The magician waved her hands to the west. "That's the god."

"That's a place," Lyudmila pointed out.

"Yeah," Marisa said simply. The three girls looked at Marisa as the Gensoukyo native hovered, waiting for them to get her point.

Finally the strange thought worked it way into Helena's consciousness. "Are you saying you worship the lands as a god? Like, not a true divine being, just the land?"

"Hey don't insult the barrier. It's been good to us here," Marisa huffed. "And yeah, we do worship it. It's a god because we say so."

Helena looked at the other two girls who seemed just as confused as she did. The idea that the worshipers decided who was a god just seemed strange to her. No one was going to tell Zeus he wasn't a god after all. And she knew Lyudmila and Kseniya's lands had an uneasy existence between the Eastern Orthodox Church and the old gods of their country. The idea you could just throw in a few more gods had to be even more strange to them.

"Well it's not like I care about the second commandment anyway," Lyudmila finally said.

Seeing that the matter had been settled Marisa returned to landing at the entry gate to the shrine. "Right! Anyway make sure to wash your hands before giving your donations." Helena followed Marisa to the ground then wandered over to the fountain. At least the well was fresh and clean. The ritual was a little odd, especially since this wasn't a water shrine, but she couldn't really fault people from being clean.

"Huh. I was expecting a bigger crowd, not that I'm complaining."

Helena looked up to see a bored woman in a dress with detached sleeves walking out of the shrine building. The outfit was a rich red, which didn't match the run down state of the rest of the shrine. Perhaps dyes were cheaper here? Most importantly Helena could sense a strange power around the woman.

"Heya Reimu," Marisa said. "Figured we should pay our respects. This is their first day out and about."

The woman nodded a greeting in return. "It's nice to see you're visiting the shrine normally this time, as opposed to starting a riot and sending tanks to break the place." She turned to look over Helena and her friends. "Still, I have no idea why you three are hanging out with Marisa. She's a bad influence even for youkai," Reimu said as she moved to sit on the steps.

"I don't know. Ask my grandma," Helena groused.

Lyudmila finished her own cleaning ritual and looked up at the woman. "Mom and Dad said something about 'expanding your understanding of the wizarding world,' whatever that means."

"Huh, so you all are the ages you look," the woman said. She stood and bowed. "Anyway I'm Reimu Hakurei, the miko of this shrine." Reimu pointed towards a box. "Donation box is there."

Helena raised an eyebrow at the priestess' greed, but it wasn't really her money. Marisa had already gone up and tossed in a few coins, then clapped twice before bowing in prayer. Helena followed suit, trying to ignore the dull rattle of metal on wood. As she clapped her hands in prayer she idly wished that the trip not be as dull as she feared it would be. Lyudmila followed suit. Kseniya on the other hand stared at the coins falling through the slats before clapping far too loudly and mumbling a prayer to meet new friends out loud.

"Where does she think she's going to meet anyone our age?" Lyudmila muttered. Helena just shrugged.

Marisa coughed to get their attention. "Anyway kids, Reimu here helps keep Gensoukyo from blowing up. With my help of course."

"Hmph. Help is it? You just try to steal my work," Reimu replied. "Though you can't do that anymore I suppose."

"What?" Marisa frowned down at the woman. "I'm not out of the game yet, ya know! I can do anything you can do."

Reimu smiled. "Then you can get the tea and snacks from the main room." Marisa grimaced in return but in the end shook her head and wandered into the shrine building.

Lyudmila shook her head. "Wow, she fell for that so easily." Helena had to agree.

Kseniya skipped over and plopped herself down on the porch before turning to Reimu. "You two act like sisters. Are you related?"

"What!" Reimu spat out. "Sisters? The first time we met she burnt down my shrine just to get a cat! She dumped slime on me and called it water training. I've had more duels with her than I have with most youkai races."

"Sounds like sisters to me," Lyudmila said with a smirk.

Helena shook her head again. That all sounded like way too much trouble. "I'm glad I was an only child."

"Yeah, when you're an only child you can pick the people you want to torment like family," Marisa said as she walked back in with a plate carrying several cups of tea.

"I don't want to hear that from a Kirisame," Reimu muttered as she grabbed a cup. "Your family's got a history."

Helena accepted one of the tea cups as the elder witch passed them out. The taste was milder than the variants that had worked their way into her homeland, though still slightly bitter. "So did you really burn down the shrine?" she asked.

"It was mostly Rika, but yeah," Marisa replied. "It was the thing to do those days."

Kseniya looked over at Marisa. "But won't that make the god mad? You said that you liked the god here."

"It's traditional," Marisa shrugged. "Besides we're witches. We have to annoy the gods every now and then."

Lyudmilla noded. "I suppose that's true."

"Yep. Witches have to annoy everyone just a little," Kseniya added.

Helena shook her head. "Your gods are a lot different from mine." She didn't even want to think what would happen if she got on the bad side of her pantheon. It was dangerous enough being on their good side.

"Finally. A witch with some faith," Reimu replied. "Maybe I should have you watch over the place next Thursday instead of Marisa."

"Uh..." Helena looked at the older woman to try to figure out how serious she was, but Reimu just looked bored. "I'm still not a priestess or anything. And why are you letting Marisa take care of the place. Didn't she burn it down?"

"And isn't Marisa supposed to be watching us?" Kseniya asked.

Reimu simply sipped her tea. "Well that was a while back. Breaking the shrine isn't as cool anymore. Also I'd stop letting her steal my snacks then." She looked over at Marisa. "Though I am kinda curious what you'll be doing with the kids."

"That's the day I have them going over to bug Patchy and loot the library," Marisa replied happily. "You don't think I'd miss out on getting to hear you gripe about your omiai? Especially since Sanae will be suffering as well."

Helena blinked at that. She could feel her translation spell straining at the words. From their expressions Lyudmila and Kseniya were similarly impaired. Lyudmila looked at Reimu. "Omiai?"

"Well the bloodline isn't going to magically continue on its own," Reimu replied with a frown. "And unlike some of us, I'm not going to live forever." The priestess sighed. "Might as well try to find someone suitable. At least I don't have Sanae's issues."

Marisa frowned as well. "I don't know. She might have it easier. Or she would if she didn't have all those outside world hangups." The black white witch shook her head, then smiled. "Ah well. It should turn out alright in the end. You're the one calling the shots after all."

"I suppose so," Reimu replied. "At least I'm not completely at the mercy of the matchmakers and my parents.'

Helena felt she was intruding into things she really didn't want to understand, and unlike a lot of witches, she knew when to leave her curiosity for later. Instead she focused back on Marisa. "So, is this just a social call or what?"

"Every call's a social call," Marisa replied, her humor returning. "But there's a lot to learn here. This shrine may be in the middle of nowhere, but it's the center of weird activity in Gensoukyo. There's a lot of stuff to find around here."

Reimu sniffed at Marisa's insult. "This is hardly nowhere. But she is right that there's a lot to see." The priestess waved at the grounds behind the shrine. "Feel free to run around the backyard. The front here is mainly for guests and shops during the festivals so there's not too much."

"Okay!" Kseniya chirped before hopping down and running to the back.

Helena looked over at Lyudmila and her friend shrugged. "Might as well look around."

"Fair enough," Helena replied as she stood up. There might be some interesting things to learn here about the Eastern powers at least.

She followed Lyudmila down a side path, past the wing of the shrine and a small storehouse. As they cleared the side, she saw Reimu hadn't been joking. There was a pond and a small stream, in addition to a number of planted trees and what looked to be a small farm plot. She started down the path towards in when Lyudmila stopped her. "What's that?" her friend asked, pointing to a small house shaped box.

"A birdhouse maybe?" she replied as she looked over the thing. It was obviously too small for humans, but it looked like it had doors of some sort, and there was a tiny donation box attached to the front.

"That's the Moriya branch shrine," a regal voice replied. "And something of an insult from the local shrine maiden. Though I suppose I can't expect too much from such a poor location."

Helena summoned up a curse spell to her mind as a woman in red materialized two feet in the air next to the little shrine. Beside her Lyudmila pulled out a silver talisman from her sleeve. She could sense the woman was magical in some way, but she couldn't recognize the source of the woman's power.

The woman took note of their preparations but didn't seem concerned at all. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am Kanako Yasaka, goddess of the mountain and progress." With a slight gesture Kanako summoned a drinking dish with some liquid Helena couldn't identify in it. "On behalf of my fellow deities I welcome you to the land of ten thousand gods."

Helena could help but swallow nervously. Gods were usually bad news. Still it was important to follow the formalities. Things usually got worse if you annoyed the gods. "It is an honor to meet you great lady Yasaka. Forgive us travelers for not knowing your name and form. I am Helena Aoede, a witch of little standing. I ask you overlook my faults."

Lyudmila gave her a strange look before slipping her talisman to her off hand. "I, Lyudmila Doroshenko bid you greeting. I speak to you without deception, and free of malice."

"Wha-" Helena's jaw dropped at her friends ridiculous tone. She elbowed Lyudmila in the ribs before whispering, "This is a god, not some demon street merchant. At least pretend to be awed or something."

Frowning Lyudmila turned on her. "Why are you being such a coward? She's a god, but that doesn't mean we can't bargain with her. That's the path to power after all."

"Ahahahaha." Helena blanched as she realized the object of their discussion was still hovering right before them. Kanako smiled before taking a drink from her dish. "I knew talking with you outsider witches would be fun. It's been a long time since I was properly feared for my divinity, and the people trying to bargain with me here treat me like a wealthy fool, as opposed to a reasonable lord." Her smile widened. "Still, both of you should probably work on your skills a bit more."

Helena blushed at the goddess' words. At least Lyudmila had the decency to look equally chagrined. Kanako shrugged and continued. "In any case, I'm not a curse god, so you don't need to worry about me demanding things and smiting you if you fail." Helena relaxed a little. "And there's nothing I want other than faith, so I'm not interested in your little power bargains." Kanako's grin became more conversational. "Though I do support my worshipers. If you're interested in the power of the Moriya, I'm willing to accept your faith. I have no issue with youkai."

"Sorry," Helena replied, "but I do serve Hecate. And my home is distant both in space and culture. Could you really act in Nova Thiva without causing trouble?"

"That's a silly question to ask a god." Helena jumped in surprise as a duplicate of the woman appeared, this one wearing a red peplos decorated with serpents and carrying a drinking dish filled with wine. "We gods can be anywhere we please, and can change our forms to suit our environs."

Lyudmila looked between the two forms of the goddess. "Whoa."

Kanako smiled at the praise, then sighed as her Greek form vanished. "However to live somewhere and accept their faith can put a strain on a god's sense of self. Those Olympians are fractious barbarians, unlike their poor suffering worshipers." Helena frowned but didn't contest the point. "I'd only really act as a personal god there. Joining the pantheon would require me to accept too much nonsense into my being, and if they wormed me into the stories it might be enough to break me into two gods. A god can handle a great deal of strain, but going through all that to get married off to some minor deity would be more than I could stand." Kanako shrugged. "Still I can offer you my aid if you're willing to share some of the faith you send to Hecate."

Helena shook her head. "I still have to refuse. I don't really have much faith to throw around." And since Hecate was one of the few gods in her pantheon who wasn't terrible, she wanted to stay on her own goddess' good side.

"What kind of aid do you give anyway?" Lyudmila asked. "You said you were the god of progress?"

"That's right!" Kanako replied happily. "My goal is to bring the science of the outside world to Gensoukyo, without damaging the innate magic of the world. My followers among the tengu and kappa have already made great strides in industry, though there are still a few problems getting a proper power source going."

"Whoa!" Lyudmila seemed impressed at the idea. "That's really impressive! I've been looking at mixing archaic and modern styles for a while, but it's been really hard to not break the spell entirely. What kind of rituals do you use for that?"

Kanako chuckled. "Well it's not so much the ritual as the mindset. You see-"

"WHEEEE~!"

"Ah! She's gaining on us! Fly faster!"

Helena turned to see three girls with transparent wings zip through the air, followed by Kseniya who was riding a... giant turtle?

"Gamera rises to cleanse the land! All is lost!" the silver haired fairy in the rear cried.

"This is your fault Sunny!" yelled the dark haired fairy.

The blond leading them spun around. "I was using my powers! That girl must be a witch or someth-urk!" A blast from Kseniya silenced the fairy's complaints and sent the trio scattering again.

"Alright! Let's finish the spies off!" yelled Kseniya as she rocked back and forth, trying to steer the giant turtle.

"Please don't fall off young miss," the turtle replied as it lazily banked to pursue the fairy trio.

Helena and Lyudmila stared at the odd tableau open mouthed as Kanako began laughing. Finally Lyudmila managed to collect herself enough to state, "The pixies here are very large."

"Yes," Helena had to agree.

Kanako chuckled a little more before shaking her head. "The fairies here in Japan are a little different. Those three are a little bigger than the usual lot though." The goddess sipped from her drinking dish again. "Even so, I imagine even a young witch can keep those three under wraps for a while."

Lyudmila nodded and turned back to Kanako. "So, you were saying something about mindset?"

Kanako set her dish on her shrine. "It's about faithfulness. Trust and respect rather than equal exchange. You see-"

Helena shook her head and left the two to discuss the matters of faith with a wave. Eastern religion was mildly interesting, but she could pry the secrets out of Lyudmila later. The magic itself was worthless to her.

Instead she moved to the shrine's back grounds. The pond where the turtle obviously lived was a large feature, and the place was decently well kept. It looked like a pleasant place to relax, and she imagined the few travelers who came out this far probably availed themselves of it. Still it didn't really feel mystical.

It was when she started walking towards the forest edge near the back that she felt a twinge of something odd. Something magical. Not the subdued magic of the shrine or the regal magic of the goddess Kanako, but something old. Something familiar.

Helena hesitated. Old magic was dangerous magic. But it wasn't too far from the shrine, and it didn't feel alive. Surely Reimu wouldn't leave something that dangerous too close. Right?

She took a deep breath, then pulled out a needle and pricked her finger. As a drop of blood formed she whispered a spell against evil magic and then walked carefully into the woods.

It was amazing how quickly the shrine seemed to fade behind the trees. The place wasn't even heavily forested. It was just a trick of the hill and the trees that were there that seemed to isolate this area. Helena hesitated again, then shook off the feeling and forced herself to press on. She was a witch. SHE was the evil in this forest.

"I smell blood."

The voice nearly froze Helena's heart. As she grabbed at her spellcard a green blue mist slowly formed before her. The mist roiled and churned, rising from a cracked stone buried half in the ground, and then formed a face. "Blood and magic. And bloody magic. Such a familiar smell."

"A ghost," Helena sighed in relief. Ghosts could be very dangerous, but any Greek witch worth her salt could deal with them. Wincing with pain she squeezed out another drop of blood from her finger prick, before pulling out some preserved meat she'd grabbed from the pantry. "Spirit free from Hades realm, I offer you blood and flesh if you desire to stay and speak."

The mist wavered, then snapped together into a woman wearing blue robes, like a glass breaking in reverse. Black wings of shadow rose behind the dead witch, and the specter seemed to have no feet. The air seemed to freeze as beneath the woman's gaze.

The green haired ghost plucked a staff from the ether and cradled it before smiling. "I appreciate the offer little girl, but the great spirit Mima needs no such offerings." Helena felt her fear returning as the ghost smiled. "I merely found the scent of your magic interesting. It's been a while since I met such a bloody mage. And while she was younger then you, your magic is more refined. You use one of the ancient styles don't you little one?"

"I use the magic of Greece," Helena replied cautiously.

"Oh excellent," the undead witch smiled. "Perhaps the first witches to abandon the gods, yet still bound to them. And filled with necromancy and deceit. A fine tradition." The ghost witch planted her staff next to her. "I'm Mima. A pleasure to meet you."

"Helena." She nodded carefully in return. A second later a thought struck her. "Wait, Mima? You're the master Marisa was going on about?"

Mima laughed. "Oh Marisa's talking about me now is she? She's grown up so much." Mima lowered her voice as if she was hiding a secret. "You know, when she was your age she stopped talking about me. Avoided any mention of her dear departed master. She was trying to get out of my shadow you see." Mima's smile softened. "I guess now that she's a proper witch she's gotten a bit nostalgic."

There was a boom from where the shrine was, then Marisa abruptly crashed through the nearest trees. The black clad witch was holding on to her hat desperately as she skidded to a stop next to Helena. The black white witch caught her breath before looking up at Mima. "You're awake?!"

"No, I'm just sleepwalking," Mima replied with a wink. The ghost witch placed her hand on Helena's shoulder. "This one is interesting. Your apprentice? I didn't think you'd take on one so soon."

Marisa rubbed the back of her head. "Well, uh, it's more of a summer camp. I mean, I'm teaching them to blow stuff up but..."

"Heh. Still haven't changed that much." The ghost yawned. "Well, have fun with your camp then. Perhaps I'll wake up if you bring your other visitors around." Mima looked down at Helena. "And if you want some tips on proper necromancy girl, you know how to call me."

The undead witch closed her eyes, faded to mist, then was gone.

Helena and Marisa stood there staring at the space the ghostly witch had once been in before turning back towards the shrine and beginning to head back. For the first time Helena actually felt she understood the strange woman who was serving as her camp counselor.

As they cleared the forest and entered the shrine's back grounds, she managed to ask, "So, um, why is she here behind the shrine?"

"Because that's her grave." Marisa took a deep breath before looking over at her. "You see, powerful ghosts can't exist without a reason. Either an emotion that forces them to hold on to the world, or magic from another source. Sure the little ghostly blobs can run around all they want, but a real evil spirit? That takes emotion."

Marisa turned away and pulled the brim of her hat low. "So when an evil spirit stops holding a grudge, well..." Marisa shrugged.

The two walked a little further before Marisa sighed and shook her head. "Anyway! You girls managed to surprise even me. I was expecting Kanako and those fairies to drop by, but getting Genji to run around like that was something else. Reimu's ordered me to drag you all back before you summon Shinki or Rika or something." The witch gave her a thumbs up. "Good job."

"I hope all our outings aren't graded by how much we annoy the people we visit," Helena muttered. She had a feeling she was going to be disappointed however.


	3. Chapter 3

Helena looked askance as Kseniya put down the plate of milk on the porch step. The young girl then waved her hand and shouted "Grandfather Domovoi, please come into my house and tend the flocks!"

Helena looked over at where Lyudmila was sitting, "So... what was that and why does it require our tiny supply of milk?"

"I'm summoning a domovoi," Kseniya said as she walked back into the cottage. "This is a nice place so it should get a good domovoi."

Lyudmila sighed and shook her head before turning to Helena. "It's a summoning ritual for a house spirit." She grimaced and turned to Kseniya, "But I don't know why you're doing that here. There's no domovoi on this island, much less in this realm."

Kseniya sniffed. "You don't know that for sure." The girl sat down and grabbed the bowl of rice that seemed to come with every meal here. "If there is one we want it in our house."

"Just so long as it stays in the living room," Helena replied before returning to her own meal. She was slowly becoming used to it, but she still missed her aunt's cooking. Japan had an obsession with fish it seemed, and milk was barely on the menu. She'd be mad at Kseniya wasting the milk they had, but honestly the paltry amount was more of an insult than a supply.

"Looks like you kids are having fun." Marisa dropped out of the sky in front of the door and waltzed into the cottage like she usually did. "Ready for today's activities?"

Lyudmila shrugged. "What are today's activities?"

"Ingredient hunting," Marisa replied. "I managed to get a lot of the stuff that can be preserved before you kids got here, but some items need to be fresh. And then there's the ingredients that only work for the people that harvest them." Marisa stretched. "But it won't be all boring work. We'll picnic by the lake and stuff. It'll be fun."

Helena sighed. Those words never actually proceeded a fun time. "Fun. Sure."

"Okay, it won't be entirely boring," Marisa replied with a shrug. "Anyway I've got a list of things to look for. Just finish eating and get some bags, and we'll be on our way."

* * *

Two hours later Helena was reflecting on how right her initial suspicions were. It wasn't fun. At all.

The Forest of Magic was apparently well known for its mushrooms. Fungi of all kinds and rarities filled the forest, waiting to be picked. And the reason that fungi loved the forest was because it was oppressively humid. The thick trees provided shade, but the heat was enough to make the entire excursion a sticky sweaty mess. Helena was dressed for hot weather, and she was still uncomfortable. Kseniya and Lyudmila were just miserable.

Marisa had admittedly tried to make things interesting by pointing out all the plants and herbs she could along with what uses they had. But eventually the weather got to their "camp counselor" as well. Apparently the woman's snarky good cheer had limits.

Thus when the group finally escaped the forest into the sun Helena was relieved. The fact that they'd exited right next to a huge lake made it even better. It was hot, but at least it wasn't as muggy. Helena all but ran into a nearby stream to cool her feet. "Finally. I thought my homeland was supposed to be hot, but that was some of the worst weather ever."

"Yeah, sometimes it can get pretty bad," Marisa admitted. "I've got spells on the houses to keep them a little more tolerable." The older witch shrugged and started taking her shoes off. "Still, as you can see some of the rarest mushrooms in the magical world grow because of that. And the lake here is close enough that you can cool down a bit when you're tired of the weather." Marisa smiled. "Like now, say."

Kseniya and Lyudmila began taking off their footwear as well, but both looked at the lake with some concern. "There aren't any rusalka or kelpies, right?" Kseniya asked cautiously.

Lyudmila frowned and nodded. "It looks like a very deep lake. Don't you have water monsters here?"

Marisa's smile faded a bit. "This end's one of the safe ones actually. The lake's got mermaids, and a few other creatures here and there, but the more rare and dangerous youkai hide in the higher pools." Marisa turned to Lyudmila. "But you're right about the depth. It's shallow for about twenty meters, but it gets real deep after that. I figure you girls are smart enough to stay close to the surface though."

Helena looked at the lake, then shrugged. It was like at home, avoid the naiads and nereids and you should be fine. Besides it wasn't like the forest was much safer. Still, there was one problem she realized as the other three stepped into the stream. "Um, we didn't take our swimming clothes with us." Helena lifted up her basket of materials. "You told us about the mushrooms, not the swimming and stuff."

"Yep!" Marisa's smile brightened again. "Which leads us to today's spell kids! Retrieving objects at a distance." She took off her hat and then reached into it to pull out a swimsuit and a potion flask. "And there we go!"

Kseniya blinked. "Weren't they just in your hat?"

"No, but they could have been," Marisa replaced her hat. "That makes the magic easier."

Lyudmila shook her head. "Do we need a hat for this masterful magic trick?"

"Nah," Marisa shrugged. "Alice uses her skirt, and honestly you could just pull small objects out of your sleeves. Heck just pulling it from behind your back works too. Main thing is people can't see your hands when you cast the spell."

Helena sat down on a rock and put down her basket. "So how does the spell actually work?"

"That's actually the easy part." Marisa held up a finger. "So you girls all know curses right?" Helena blinked then sniffed derisively at the question. Of course they knew curses.

"A few," Lyudmila replied dryly.

Kseniya frowned. "But we aren't supposed to use them unless we really really need to."

Marisa nodded. "Yeah curses are kinda a last resort thing. Or a joke. But anyway the important thing is knowing the basic principle. When you want to cast a curse you get some object off the target right? Why?"

Helena and the others looked at each other then back to Marisa. "To create a connection between the spell and the target of course," Helena replied slowly. "Personal items have a connection to their owner."

"Right!" Marisa smiled. "Which means all your stuff has a connection to you!" Marisa reached into her hat again and pulled out a wand. "So instead of using the wand to find me, I use me to find the wand! And then I bring it to me. It's like targeting a curse, but in reverse." Helena rubbed her eyes. She was beginning to dread when Marisa explained things, but as she mentally filled in the blanks, she thought she understood.

"But how do we figure out the right thing that's connected to us?" Lyudmila asked. "After all there's only one me, but I own a lot of stuff."

Marisa shrugged. "That is the tricky part. I mostly did it by feel. It'll take a bit of work the first couple of times, but it'll get easier as you practice. You can also make it really easy if you mark your stuff, but that gives it a closer connection to you, so be careful."

Helena sighed. It seemed they were out of clues. Still it shouldn't be too hard a spell right? She closed her eyes and tried to feel the connections leading to her.

Of course it turned out merely visualizing the mess was hard at first. How could you trace something backwards? It wasn't how the magic was supposed to work.

Finally she decided to try starting with the normal spell. She targeted her hat and visualized the thread of 'ownership' that attached it to her 'self'. This came easily to her. Altering the threads of fate was something a Greek witch was good at after all. Then she reached out, trying to find the other threads that were attached here. It took two tries, but then her mind clicked and she found herself holding dozens upon dozens of threads.

"I did it!"

Helena's concentration shattered at Kseniya's happy shout. The other girl happily waved the clothes as proof of her victory. Lyudmila turned a withering glare on her sister. "Should you really be waving your bathing clothes around like a flag?"

Sighing as Kseniya pouted, Helena did her best to ignore the squabbling sisters and turned back to her spell. This time she managed to grab hold of the threads on the first try, then she worked on sorting them. She gave up on trying to figure out what item was attached to what string immediately, and instead tried to figure out where the biggest mass of strings were. When she put that together she discarded those, since they'd almost certainly lead back to her home, and began determining the second biggest bundle.

Now that she had those in hand she followed back the strings. It was an odd feeling, moving up the string instead of back towards herself, but the connection was hard to lose now that she'd found it. In a few moments she had reached what was likely the cabin and was peering at the thread ends wondering how to tell them apart.

In the end she just gave up and began rummaging around in the other side. It was easy to tell the items apart once she'd picked one up. She grabbed a few spare dresses and her comb before finally pulling out her swim clothes. "There!"

"Finally," Lyudmila muttered as she pulled out her own clothes from her sleeve. "So where are we going to change?"

Marisa waved the wand she'd grabbed and a tent popped up out of the ground. "For all your modesty needs. Don't think there are any fishermen near here but no reason to take the chance."

"So this is where all the fish come from?" Helena asked as they stepped inside and began changing.

"That's not possible," Lyudmila replied. "There were saltwater fish."

"Yeah, we get imports from other realms as well," Marisa said. "Still the lake gives us most of our fish, both for food and trading. It's one of the safest places to fish, even with the mist."

Kseniya looked at Marisa curiously. "Is the lake really misty in the morning? It doesn't look like it should be."

Marisa smirked, "You'll see." The older witch finished putting on her swimwear before putting her hat back on. "Anyway I'm sweaty and miserable, so let's swim."

Helena completely agreed with that sentiment. As soon as Marisa dispelled the tent she was dashing to the lake shore. The water was just as cool and clear as the stream that led into it. She waded in a few feet to where the water was about three feet then dived in, taking a few lazy strokes before surfacing and turning back to the shore.

Kseniya had apparently rushed out as well, but was wading carefully now that the water was deeper. Lyudmila was going more slowly. Marisa was sticking more to the shore sitting in the surf. Helena waved her two friends over. "Come on, come on."

"Right!" Kseniya finally stopped trying to wade and messily paddled over. Lyudmila stuck to wading.

Helena spent a few moments lazily allowing herself to drift before they arrive. "How did you get so good at swimming?" Lyudmila asked with a grimace.

"Swimming is important," Helena replied. "Even if Nova Thiva is landlocked there's a big lake nearby. And there's a lot of islands around. Just because we're city witches doesn't mean we can stick around in one place all the time."

"Wow. Your realm has a lot of water," Kseniya said with wide eyes. "We just have rivers and small lakes."

Lyudmila nodded and gestured over the waters here. "This is probably as big as the biggest lake in the Black Forest. Maybe bigger. And all of them are packed with water monsters. I don't think there's a single lake in the whole Black Forest that isn't at least haunted."

Helena shook her head. "Weird." She'd only seen the sea once, but it was huge. The idea of every waterway having a monster was just strange to her. "I mean sure there are a lot of sea monsters, but there's just so much water to lose them in."

"A massive sea... That sounds nice. But it'd be hard to find my friends."

A blue haired woman wearing a green kimono top surfaced next to the three. Helena and Lyudmila blinked at the newcomer while Kseniya gasped and pointed at the scaled tail where the woman's legs should be. "Ah! Mermaid!"

"Oh, heya Wakasagihime," Marisa said as she glided through the water towards the group. She must be flying underwater Helena realized. "What are you doing here in the shallows?"

"Hi, Marisa." The mermaid waved. "There were some nice garnets here, so I was going to grab a few."

"Garnets?" Lyudmila perked up at that. "Really?"

The mermaid smiled and nodded. "Yeah." Wakasagihime held out her hand to reveal several pebble sized gems, causing Lyudmila to deflate. "Mostly black garnets, but I'm hoping to find a red one."

"Cool. I'll have to check it out myself," Marisa said. "So how's the water?"

"Clear and safe, but it'll be noon in about an hour," Wakasagihime replied.

Kseniya looked at the two curiously. "What happens at noon?"

"Lunch," Marisa lied cheerfully. "Wanna join us Wakasagihime?"

"Ah, no thank you, I've got plans already made. And I wouldn't want to interrupt you and your children," the mermaid replied.

Helena's jaw dropped. "I'm not her kid!" she and Lyudmila yelled out.

"They're not my kids," Marisa yelled waving her hands frantically in denial.

"Oh?" The mermaid cocked her head curiously. "Well I suppose their hair is the wrong color. Unless you were seeing the other shrine maiden."

Marisa frowned. "I'm not."

Wakasagihime shrugged. "Oh well. Anyway I need to get to my gem hunt. Have fun." The mermaid waved then swam over to the shore before beaching herself and starting to sift through the sand.

Marisa sighed and floated to face them. "So congrats. You got to meet your first mermaid. They're usually very reclusive so this is a rare occurrence."

"Mermaids are kinda ditzy," Kseniya noted.

"Yep," Marisa replied. "She was under some strange magical power when we first met, so she asked if I was here to exterminate her. Got really happy when I said yes." Marisa thought for a moment. "Less happy when I set her on fire, but the lake was right here so..."

Helena started at Marisa. "You set her on fire?"

"It was a weird incident," Marisa said. Helena looked at the elder witch but that seemed to be all the explanation that was forthcoming.

Lyudmila looked over at her. "I'm actually surprised you didn't think she was a siren."

Helena blinked at her friend. "Sirens have feathers." She held up her hands as everyone turned towards her. "No really they do! Grandma had us go visit a group once. They're creatures of the air."

"Okay then," Lyudmila said shaking her head. "So why'd you visit them anyway?"

"To learn how to suppress their charming song. It's kinda unintentional apparently." Helena blushed as she remembered her younger self blundering face first into a rock when she first arrived at the island. "It's not a hard spell but Grandma wanted me to learn it early because it can be tweaked easily to handle other sonic charms."

Marisa smirked. "That sounds like a great spell. I should have you go bother that night sparrow with it."

"Why am I your weapon of annoyance?" Helena groused.

"Because that annoys you too," Marisa replied. "But that's for later. For now you three have fun in the lake. I'm gonna go get a place picked out for lunch."

As Marisa started back towards the shore, Lyudmila and Kseniya turned to her. "Well since we're here for a bit, why don't you teach us how to swim properly?" Lyudmila said.

Kseniya bobbed up and down in agreement. "Yeah! Then we can race and stuff."

Helena blinked. There was no way she'd be able to teach some other people how to swim well in a day. And certainly not well enough to beat her in a race.

Then again, it would kinda be nice to beat the sisters at a contest...

Helena began swimming a little closer to shore. "Alright, so the most important thing is learning how to kick right."

* * *

It took a bit of work, but eventually Lyudmila and Kseniya managed to get a decent stroke down. Helena waved over to where Marisa was sitting in the surf. "We're going to race down to peninsula," she said, pointing at the strip of land to their left. It didn't seem too far, and it was in the shallows that Marisa indicated.

"Sure thing!" Marisa replied. "There should be some raspberry bushes there if you want to grab some for lunch too."

"Berries? Let's go~" Kseniya said before starting off.

Lyudmila squawked in protest. "It's not a race if we don't all start at the same time!" Helena just mentally shrugged and started swimming.

Kseniya's head start quickly vanished of course. Lyudmila's height allowed the older girl to pass her sister easily. Helena on the other hand kept up a steady stoke, pacing Kseniya. Then as the other two girls began to tire and slow down, Helena allowed herself to keep moving forward. By the end of the race she had enough time to leave the water and walk clear of the surf before the two sisters dragged themselves ashore. "By the way, swimming is tiring," Helena said.

"You don't say," Lyudmila muttered. Kseniya settled for a pout.

Helena smirked before the reality of being soaked through in the cold caught up to her. "Ugh. I should fly back and grab my grimoire for a drying spell."

"Your prize, Olympian," Lyudmila said before flicking a cantrip over the three of them. Helena sighed in relief as the chilly water vanished.

Kseniya gave her an odd look. "You haven't memorized one? What do you use to dry your clothes?"

"The sun," Helena replied shortly. "My realm is warmer than here most of the time. Drying charms just don't come up that often." Helena paused and frowned. "Though it was really hot a while back. Why is it colder now?"

"That is weird," Lyudmila said. "Maybe we should look around?"

Helena let the taller girl lead the way as the three of them moved through the tiny strip of forest between the two shores. They had to be careful to avoid the thorns of the raspberry bushes and other foliage that grew there, but it was still only a few minutes before Kseniya pointed at a white splotch. "That's ice!"

She squinted and moved past a tree to get a better view, only to see Kseniya was right. The entire shore area was frozen over, along with a small chunk of the lake. Lyudmila whistled at the sight. "That's incredible. How did that happen?"

Helena pointed at the small igloo sitting in the middle of the frozen area. "At a guess who ever lives there is responsible."

The buzzing of large wings caught their attention as they stood there. Looking up Helena saw a small fairy in a simple blue dress with wings like crystals flying down towards them. "Hey! What are you doing near my house?" The fairy put her hands on her hips and peered at them intently.

"We swam here, miss fairy," Kseniya said. "We were going to pick raspberries."

"Oh! That's okay then." The fairy settled down to the ground. "The raspberries here are nice, but freezing all the thorns so I can pick them is hard."

Helena blinked. "Freezing all the thorns?"

"Like this!" the fairy said before turning towards a bush and concentrating. The ridiculous expression on the fairy's face almost made Helena laugh, but her mirth was replaced by awe as frost slowly crept up the vine, freezing each thorn while leaving the berries unharmed. The leaves were often less lucky, but it was still impressive control.

"Wow," Lyudmila said. Her friend pointed over to the frozen area. "Did you freeze that place too?"

The fairy looked scandalized by the question. "Of course I did! I'm Cirno, the strongest fairy!" The little figure puffed out her chest as she continued. "I can freeze anything. I'm so strong, I was even in the Gensoukyo Chronicle! Everyone should know about me."

Helena raised an eyebrow at that. The little fairy kid didn't seem that different from the trio Kseniya roundly trounced, much less to be the equal of the fey royalty that once inhabited Europe. But keeping such a large area of the lake frozen was not easy. Her mother would find it quite taxing, and even her grandmother would consider it a waste of power. "Sorry, but we're not from Gensoukyo, so we didn't know about you. It's really impressive though."

Cirno seemed confused for a moment, then her eyes widened. "Oh, you're those witch girls from the paper. Aya was really mad Hatate found out about you first. Um... Kseniya, Ludmila, and Helena." The fairy said, pointing at each in turn.

"Huh, we're famous," Helena muttered. She hadn't realized visitors were such a big deal in this realm. Or maybe it was because of their 'chaperone.'

Lyudmila stepped forward, an odd gleam in her eyes. "So Cirno, how would you like to get even stronger?"

"Stronger?" The fairy looked up at Lyudmila quizzically. "But I'm already the strongest? What are you talking about?"

"I can trade some of my power for yours," Lyudmila said. "All I want is a little bit of your fairy essence, and in exchange I can give you true magic."

Helena blinked as her friend pulled a shining jewel out of nowhere. She looked to Kseniya for an explination but the younger sister was just watching intently. Perhaps this was their tradition's unique skill?

Cirno on the other hand seemed to find the shining jewel mesmerizing. "I don't know... I mean, I'm the best fairy. Why would I want to give away some of my fairyness? Freezing power is all the power I need."

"Um," Lyudmila seemed to think for a moment. "Well it would give you the ability to, uh, change size. Or maybe teleport? It's magic!"

The fairy's gaze sharpened. "Teleporting? I kinda wanna teleport..." Cirno slowly reached down towards the gem of power.

"Don't touch Cirnoooooooo!"

Helena yelped in surprise as a green haired fairy streaked out of the sky and kicked Lyudmila in the head. The tiny girl pointed down at the stunned witch with a trembling hand. "Get away from Cirno you, you, crazy witch!"

Cirno blinked as the green fairy grabbed her by the hand and began flying away. "Huh, what's wrong Daiyousei? Why are we running away?" The voices faded as the two fairies headed into the distance.

Helena stood in bemused silence for a while before looking down at Lyudmila. "What was that all about?"

"Yeah, why were you trying to make a contract with a little fairy like that?" Kseniya asked. "Making contracts with anything less then a lake spirit is weird."

Lyudmila groaned and slowly pulled herself upright. "You saw her ice powers! I just wanted a bit of that ability. And unlike the fey back home she wouldn't have made some crazy bargain that had me solving puzzles for the rest of my life or some nonsense." She rubbed her head. "I don't know what was up with that other fairy though. Fey are never supposed to interfere with bargains like that..."

Helena just shook her head. "I think the rules might just be different here. Anyway, we aren't going to making any fey contracts today, so let's get some berries and head back."

* * *

They'd flown back just as a strange mist had started to roll in. Apparently the noon mist was what gave the lake its name, though Helena was still confused as to how that worked. Lunch itself had been a set of fairly modern sandwiches to Helena's delight. Something other than fish was great.

After lunch they'd changed back and picked a few plants that should be harvested in the afternoon, before finally heading back to the cabin.

As they approached the house Marisa suddenly paused and held up a hand. "Hrm." The older witch's eyes narrowed for a moment before relaxing. "That's odd."

"What is it?" Helena asked dreading the inevitable answer.

"Why don't you kids go see for yourself?" Marisa replied with her carefree grin.

Helena sighed. "Why do I bother asking you questions anymore?"

"No clue kid," Marisa shrugged. "I'm more of an 'ask questions' type myself really."

"Let's just see what's happening," Lyudmila said before walking over and pushing open the door.

Inside the sitting room was a small girl with doll like complexion in very formal robes. As Kseniya ran over next to her sister to get a good look, the girl bowed to them. "Please take care of me." Then with that pronouncement the girl vanished.

"Is the house haunted?" Kseniya asked cautiously.

Helena shook her head. "I feel a presence, but its not one of the dead."

"Zashiki warashi," Marisa said moving up behind them. "Our local house spirits and of course youkai spies, though since we're all youkai here I figure there won't be much spying. Not sure why she decided to move in, but it's good luck. Treat her nice."

Lyudmila's mouth dropped. "Wait, do you mean Kseniya's ritual actually summoned a house spirit?"

"Yay! A new friend," Kseniya cheered.

Helena just began walking towards her room "At least it's not some creepy old man." It seemed their trip was going to get stranger and stranger as time passed, and there was nothing she could do about it.


End file.
